Laura Yanela

Jubilee South

Minga Informativa

Representatives of diverse social movements and networks from the entire continent spoke out that the people of the south are the actual creditors of all historical, social and ecological debts.

The participants in the Assembly spoke about the need to coordinate strategies in order to obtain reparations and restitutions for all the harm done and goods plundered in the South as a consequence of the payments made on foreign debts.

The Assembly of Creditor People from the South was an initiative that the continental network Jubilee South Americas organized together with other organizations and movements from the continent such as the Alliance of Creditor People from the South on Ecological Debt, the Latin American Network of Women Transforming the Economy (REMTE), the World March of Women, the International Alliance of Inhabitants, the Latin American and Caribbean Continental Students Organizations (OCLAE) and the Latin American Conferderation of Rural Organizations (CLOC-Via Campesina), amoung others. The objective was to generate an open and participative space where people could express themselves, give testimony and denounce the effects that the payment of the foreign debt has on their daily life and ideas for stopping this problem and obtaining justice and reparations.

More than an economic problem, the external debt is a political and ideological problem, said Sandra Quintela, representative of the organization Jubilee South, in introducing the activity. "In 2003 we began working with the idea that we are creditors. The debt of our countries has already been paid many times and, moreover, it is totally unjust. It only causes suffering for the people and it is evident that we are not the debtors but, on the contrary, they own us".

She furthermore clarified that in the struggle against the payment of the external debt it is fundamental that social movements use strategies that help reaffirm this vision.

As well, in general, she remarked on the importance of carrying out educational campaigns so that all men and women are aware of what they are owed, what fundamental rights are being violated and the relationships with the external debt.

Based on the presentation of testimonies, the participants responded to three questions: What is the debt whose payment we wish to recuperate? Who owes you this debt? How should this debt be reparated or paid?

Maria Rosa Anchundia from Ecuador, representative of the REMTE network, said: "There is an invisible debt, which is the debt owed to women. The work that we carry out contributes not only to the maintenance of the economies of families but is also the real base for the functioning of the economic system. The debt affects women considerably - the reduction in health and education budgets will mean the overloading of women's work. The state must pay this debt to women by means of social security. Our call is to struggle against financial capital, against imperialism and to demand the payment of this debt to women".

The representatives of the distinct organisations present highlighted that the corporations and transnational companies from the countries of the North, the World Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the governments and political leaders that are accomplices are responsable for the imposition of the debt as they plunder nature and destroy the environment, promote financial liberalization policies and the privatization of water, air, and earth, do not stimulate industrial development, implement fiscally conservative policies and reduce social investment so that more funds are flowed to the payment of the debt.

The participants also presented diverse proposals and initiatives to strengthen the struggle against the payment of the debt. Some proposals were: to undertake audits of the external debt in order to determine who really owes who; to undertake actions to stop the implementation of free trade and to demand that governments implement policies of integration that favour the rights of the people.

Trans. Amanda Procter